


Inhuman Spark

by Regency



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. There’s something about Professor River Song that isn’t so human on the day she dies and he’ll spend the rest of their un-romance finding out what it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

                She had spoken his name.  Tears in her eyes and voice, she had spoken his name and walked away.  A part of him was galled at her, this perfect stranger who dared sully his name with her human tongue.  That side of him raged behind his eyes, wanting nothing more than to shake her until the truth poured out of her in fear.  But there was more inside of him than the son of Gallifrey, her last son.  His rational monster had reared its head at the familiar fashion in which the sounds had flowed from her lips.

                River Song had not merely recited his name, she had  _spoken_  it with an ease that should not have belonged to a child of Earth.

                The Doctor knew of many a humanoid race and he had presumed the archaeologist to number among them.  Yet, now that he thought of it, he realized that she had confounded him more than once today.  The more he had questioned her, the less she’d responded.  She was not only filled with spoilers, she carried in that book an embarrassment of secrets.  This left him more curious than he had either right or time to be.  The Vashta Nerada were lying in wait, time was neither their friend nor their grudging ally.  It was their enemy outright; nevertheless, he couldn’t resist giving a portion of thought over to the mystery of River Song.

                She knew his name, she knew his future, and she knew his faces.  She knew entirely too much, and he wanted to know why.

…

                They were, quite simply put, waiting to die.  Their numbers were steadily dwindling and they were fast running out of places to hide.  In a moment when things could have not have felt more hopeless, he was once more preoccupied with Professor River Song, archaeologist.

                  _“You need to be less emotional, Doctor, right now.”_

                He’d taken that bit rather personally.  Yes, his hearts had hammered in grief for Donna.  She had quickly earned the position of his best mate in their too brief journey together.  He counted on her and had looked happily forward to all good times they’d share.  He’d like to be able to look forward to those times now, but that evidently wasn’t to be.  There wasn’t a question that he was grieving, though he would never let that show.  Centuries of playing his feelings close to the vest had made him an expert at compartmentalizing his emotions to deal with the moment at hand.  He had been coping just fine thank you, thinking clearly and planning feverishly when she’d distracted him with her nonsense.

                If only it had been genuine nonsense.

                Her expression had told the tale, his inner turmoil bursting the seams of the calm she was attempting to exude.  He was her open book and the pages had become a shambles.  He didn’t like the feeling.  While Time Lords were gifted with telepathy, their brains were structured in such a manner that there were whole swathes of telepathic races with whom they—he, now, just he—had difficulty communicating at all.  There was even the rare creature capable of breaching his psychic defenses sight unseen.  River Song shared obvious physiology with none of them, neither did her colleagues.  To his eyes, she was utterly human.  He still couldn’t shake the sense he had that she’d read him word for word without uttering a one.

                Then, of course, there’d been her other curious statement to consider—said, not for the first time:  “ _Dear god, you’re hard work young!”_

                The Doctor was many things, none of them was remotely young.  There were few beings in existence that would dare stand before him and call him so.  This woman, this girl in the relative scheme of their apparent ages, had done it twice.  Felman Lux had all but named them wed amid their domestic; she hadn’t denied it.  He was simultaneously galled and mortified at the idea that he would deign to marry such a child, and at his growing sense that she was no child at all; not a human one, at any rate.

                In the quiet, frantic peace they had left, his curiosity overruled his good sense and he tentatively reached out for her mind.  Time Lords were better equipped for touch telepathy than the distance variety, but he didn’t doubt she was on her guard now.  A probing tendril brushed against her consciousness, only enough to register the contact and no more.

                He pretended at busyness and futzed with his screwdriver while avidly counting shadows.

                She blinked. Then, tilted her head to peer more easily at a book on a shelf.

                He frowned.  She hadn’t noticed the contact.   _Doesn’t say much for any psychic ability._   Admittedly a tad disappointed, he tried again.

He shouldn’t have.

An abrupt explosion of numbness lunged through the connection and he blinked madly, trying to break free.  There was nothing.  He couldn’t sense or feel and or taste, Time was a concept of which he’d suddenly lost all comprehension. Staggering, he moved to put physical distance between them, though there were few options that kept him safely in the protection of the light.  Not that he cared, he’d rather be dead than go on like this, completely senseless in a universe designed for the blessedly aware.

                The professor spun around to pin him with a dark look.  He supposed; he couldn’t see her.  Feel her, maybe, yes, something, but not see her.  “Kindly keep out of my thoughts, Doctor.  You may discover something you don’t want to know.”

                He rubbed at his temples frantically.  This psychic emptiness was more than he could bear.  “Noted, Professor. Duly noted.”  He grabbed his head. “Gah, what was that?”

                “Never experienced a psychic void before?”  She was amused. “Oh, don’t be an infant.”  She strode over, confidence rolling with the certainty of her stride.  He twitched in response to the sudden presence of her sure hands on his face.

 Out of the emptiness came a sparkling light that warmed his senses, all twenty-three of them.  Familiarly, it brushed against his consciousness, a gesture he returned, only too glad to be able.  Seconds, it had been seconds without this part of himself and, now, he wanted to tether that part to life forevermore.  He wouldn’t be who he was without those senses.   _Thank you_ , he offered graciously to his offender and savior.  He’d all but done this to himself.

 _Anytime, sweetie_ , she replied, her thumbs tenderly caressing his cheeks as she retreated from his mind.  Her absence was immediately felt and he couldn’t help the relieved cough the leapt out of his mouth.  For a shining moment, he’d tasted brotherhood, as though one of his kind had blinked into existence and right out before his eyes.   _Like an amputated limb, those phantom flickers._

She released him completely and moved away, all business.  “I’d avoid attempting to form any psychic links for the next little while.  You won’t be able to control the strength of your probes.  You could do serious damage to someone less accustomed to telepathic communication.”

                He was still gaping after her when what remained of Proper Dave appeared once more.   _This bears thinking about again_ , he realized. But not right then.

…

                Handcuffed to a piece of machinery, he watched River Song prepare to go to her death.  She was far too contented about the whole thing for his comfort.   _Not too contented_ , he had to remind himself _, she’s just brave even when she’s crying._   Anita and River’s commonalities made him strain more desperately at his bond.  He would have slain the Vashta Nerada for Anita if he could have, he hadn’t yet conceived of what atrocities he would commit for this woman.

                  _She doesn’t even cry like other people._  The tears, he thought they must have glowed just a bit.

                “Let me do this!”

                “If you do this, it’ll mean I never met you.  It can’t be you.”

                “Why not?  Time can be rewritten!”

                “Not those times, not one line. Don’t you dare.”  Her face was filled to the brim with sympathy and regret.  “You have to be the last one, not me.”

                “The last one?”  He stared, continuing to do battle with the cuffs as she continued to hardwire the uplink.  “What do you mean ‘the last one’?”

                “There’s no time.”

                “What. Do. You. Mean?”  He surrendered all pretence of calm.  He couldn’t sit by and let this happen.  One more death on his hands was too much.   _Please._

                Relenting, she put down the implement of her demise to reach inside the collar of her spacesuit.  From it she pulled a necklace that carried two pendants, one he recognized as a TARDIS key and the other in the shape of home; the symbol for ‘home’ in Gallfreyan, that is.  She yanked the keepsake from her neck and tossed it at his feet.  He never saw it arrive for her felt  _her_  first.

                The earlier spark he had mistaken for a highly-evolved mind was, in fact, a highly-evolved mind evolved in the same manner as his.   _I’m not the last one anymore. It isn’t just me._    Her essence was different than any he’d encountered in his long life, but he’d know another Time Lord in any form.   _She’s been wearing a perception filter! A perception filter, I should have realized._

                “It was you!  When you fixed the void.  It was you I felt.  You erected your psychic shields to hide from me.”  They would have to be formidable to succeed while she remained in such close proximity.  He was dying to know just how formidable they were, in how many ways River Song could confound him simply by breathing.

                Her smile, teasing yet understanding, grew amid her tears. “Spoilers!”

                He didn’t want to let her go, this stranger, not now.  “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare, River.”  He found himself shaking at the force of his dread, fighting harder to get free.  The only other left of his kind was voluntarily going to her death for him.   _Why must it always end this way?_  “Please. Please, don’t leave me alone.”

                Although her hands moved with purpose, her mind was preoccupied with him, attempting to soothe him by sharing feelings of love and reverence he couldn’t yet understand. “It’s okay, it’s okay.  It’s not over for you. You’ll see me again.”

                “I don’t want to see you again! I want to see you now.”  He didn’t care if he was crying and he didn’t care if that made him seem a modicum less brave.  All he wanted was another minute, another lifetime with her.

                “And to think, ten minutes ago you couldn’t stand me.”  He could see himself growing to love her smile, wicked as it was.

                “I didn’t know you yet.”

                 “You still don’t, Doctor.”  _You and me, time and space. You watch us run._  It was a promise.

                “I want to, I want to so very much.”  He fought off his tears; he didn’t want to miss a moment of her face.   _Which face is this? How many have you had?_  She didn’t answer.

                “Someday.”  The timer was counting down, but she was ready now.  He couldn’t possibly be.

                “River, you know my name.  You whispered my name in my ear.  There’s only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name.  There’s only one time I could.”  The truth was written on her face and, now, on his.

                “Hush now, spoilers.”

                And very quickly, very painfully, The Doctor became the last of his kind all over again.

~!~

                He went to Midnight to forget her.  He’d reached out his proverbial feelers in the hopes of finding her and gotten nothing in return.  If she lived at all, at any point in time, she either didn’t know him or didn’t care to.  All was quiet on the sacred band, the one where Time Lords came to call.  No one called but him, and then even he was forced to stop.  The echoes nearly drove him mad.

                Midnight finished the task.  Only Donna’s careful handling and a touch of something far off and healing kept him level.

                He hardly slept, but when he did, River Song’s remembered spark lit midnight to noon and he slept well.

~!~

                He gained a new face and new hearts and a new companion, and thought he had outgrown his old yearnings; he thought he had outgrown the mystery of her.  He was wrong.

When she landed on top of him, dressed to the nines, he instinctively reached out for that inhuman spark he knew her human face concealed.  She searched his eyes curiously before rising gracefully from their crush.  He had managed to touch something before she quickly slammed her mind away from his. It tingled.

                “Follow that ship!”

**…**

                She was done-up in combat fatigues for the Church now.  She wore them easily, as easily as her dress and heels, perhaps more so.  The hair was tucked away neatly; he dared say with military precision.  Her oddity confused him—and comforted him, as he knew from where it stemmed.  Whatever spoilers she might have called her own, he knew the greatest one so far.

                “You’re a Time Lord, or a Time Lady, rather,” he declared to her turned back.  Her attention was held raptly by an old leather book.  It wasn’t  _the_  diary; he’d know that one anywhere; still, she was captivated all the same.

                “No idea what you mean.”

                “You can’t lie to me, River Song. I know what you are.”

                She whirled on him so swiftly there wasn’t anything he could have done to prevent their collision.  He backed up quickly from the too-pleasant experience of being flush against her.  His former self had been so preoccupied with her mind that her form had gone largely unevaluated.  He had reached the end of that ignorance.

                “The sooner you understand what you don’t know, the more you’ll learn.”  There was so little teasing in her voice, he hardly recognized her.

                “You speak in riddles.”

                Then, like a light, she was herself again.  “I know! Infuriating, isn’t it?”  She winked and strode away, swing enough in her walk to make him linger.

                “Incredibly!” he agreed, to her disappearing backside.

                  _Oh, hush, you!_   He turned in distracted circles for the source of the voice, only to realize it had come from inside his mind.  He shoved her right out.

                “That will do, thank you!”  Ignoring the confounded clerics around him, he strode in the direction of crashed  _Byzantium_.  Without doubt she’d be where the action was.  And that was precisely where he wanted to be.


	2. Chapter 2

 

…

…

                “Throw me in. I’m a complex time-space event.”

                He twisted to stare at her. “You cannot be serious.”  Her dying all agleam flickered in his mind's eye.

                She blinked at him, unenlightened. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

                “No.  Absolutely not!”

                “If you don’t –“

                “I don’t care! The last thing I’m going to allow is for you to pop out of existence. Seen quite enough that lately, thanks.”  He didn’t count the half-life he’d left her; he wanted her to live, fully.

                She didn't pry.  “All right, then.  Have you got a better plan?”

                He winked for a shock.  “Haven’t I always?”

                “Not in my experience, no.”

                “Well, you’re no fun," he rejoined with a prime scowl.

                “You’re about all the fun I can handle.”

                “Handle me often, do you?”

                “Oh, shut up," she snapped, but she was grinning despite herself as she turned away.

…

                Now that he knew what to feel for, the Doctor had no trouble sensing River standing before him.  He could see her easily, of course, but to feel her as he felt his kin was magical, a balm of sorts on his weary spirits.  He knew that this woman would be heroic one day—someone who died in the name of four thousand others could only be that—yet to wanted her to be that brilliant now.  He wanted the story he and the Master had failed to write together.

               “Can I trust you, River Song?”

                “If you like.  But where’s the fun in that?”

                  _Behave_ , he found himself telling her just because he could.

                  _How boring._

                Oh, he  _was_  going to like her.

~!~

                “Hello, sweetie.”

                She scowled, striking even dressed as Cleopatra, “That’s supposed to be my line.”

                “Your line’s been etched on the oldest rock face in history.  I think it’s safe to say it’s going to be stolen a lot from here on.”

                “It took you entirely too long to get here.” She dismissed her guards with a sulky wave.

                “You could have written a note.”

                “I did,” she teased. He so loved it when she teased.

                “Oh, yes, you did.  Bit much though.”

                She shrugged. “Did what I needed it to.”

                “I’ll say.”  He strode over and squeezed onto the chaise at her side.  “Got any extra fruit—but no apples! Dreadful things, those.”

                She shuffled aside to make room for him.  “This is not how I imagined this meeting going.”

                “Story of my life.”  He tapped her nose and stole a sliver of honeydew melon from her platter.  “Delicious melons you’ve got there, Doctor.”

                She covered her kohl-lined eyes—and her cleavage.  “Please, shut up.”

                “Not a chance.”

…

              He addressed his foes boldly, confident in his chances at victory with her and the Ponds at his back.

“Think about what you’re doing and do the smart thing: let someone else go first.”

                “You are an idiot,” hissed River, sounding not a little overawed at his temerity. It was like she didn’t know him at all.

                “And you are our legacy.”

                To that, she said nothing.

                “Promise me that you won’t let anyone forget us.”  He knew that she would soon go to her death, but to be remembered even that much longer meant the world.

                “You’ll never be forgotten.”

                He turned to brush his fingers against her cheek.  “Neither will you.”

                “Oh, Doctor, forgotten is all I ever am.”

                More fool the universe, he thought.  She was the most unforgettable Song of all.

…

…

                “My fool.”  She cuffed him sharply on the ear, knocking his top hat askew.  He was dressed to dance and she dressed to stun.  Only one of them appeared to be succeeding at present.

                “My hero,” he retorted, gleeful that she was all he had hoped she would be.

                “Amy Pond saved you.  I just reminded her to do it.”

                He grasped her wrist in his hand to repeat, “My hero.”

                She leaned up and kissed him ever so softly on the corner of his mouth.  “My wonderful burden.”  She released him, only to vanish in a flash of benign light.

~!~

                All that she was whizzed through him before he opened the door.  She was a supernova of roiling emotion out there.  He couldn’t have missed her less if she’d purposely thrown up a beacon.

                He tossed open the door to the gents’ to see the Ponds and River looking downtrodden. They came to face him with identical looks of disbelief.   _This is cruel, even by your standards_ , bounded on lips and hearts.

                Amelia approached him first, her sweet face a mask of unspoken hurt. She circled him and he could only follow her progress as he tried to work out what had left them all this wounded.  He pulled her into his arms when he could stand the lost expression on her face no longer.

                Rory was equally incredulous. River was furious, though she’d immediately tamped down on those emotions when he’d arrived.  Some of it slipped when her hand met his cheek with the force of a small asteroid crash.

                “I’m assuming that’s for something I haven’t done yet.”

                “Yes.”

                He wanted very much to say sorry, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret whatever it was that had dragged that last bit of storm into her eyes.  He doubted anyone else could feel it, the heightened static in the air or the spark in her motion.  It was no human spark.  Nothing about her ever had been.

                And he had brought it out.

…

                He tried his luck, spoke their language. Just a few words, enough for recognition.  Her expression didn’t waiver, but she swallowed, quiet and quick.

                He grinned and brushed her mind again.

                “Argh!”   _Fool me twice, shame on me._

                She smirked.  “Hasn’t anyone every told you to watch what you touch?”

                “It does have the ring of familiarity, yes.”

                “You should have listened to them.”

                “That’s become abundantly clear to me.”

                With a put-upon sigh, she came to him and gathered his head between her hands.  They were cooler than he would have imagined, cooler than before. The thought melted away in the face of a new heat in his mind, her spark flaring to soothe his psychic shock.

                “Hurts,” he pouted.

                She kissed his cheek. “It will pass.”

                He didn’t want it to.

…

                  _What secrets are you keeping? Why have you pulled the Ponds into it?_

                When she didn’t answer, he endeavoured to put an end to their telepathic play.  She couldn’t be trusted; he’d always known that, Time Lord or not.

                His boycott endured exactly as long it took for him to tire of the solitude in his head.  All of time and space vying for attention, but he wanted her there as well.

                He reached for her and she reached back, not a single question answered and few more asked.

…

                Her laughter blew a pleasant wind in back of his mind, which would have been decidedly enjoyable were he not presently being pinned by a half-dozen alarmed U.S. Secret Service agents.

                “River, make her blue again!”

                  _Bless_ , she giggled, and did as he asked.

                He slipped away from the suited gentlemen to occupy what was inarguably, in this era, the most powerful seat on Earth.  He got a face full of gun barrels for his feat.   _I’d have preferred a blue ribbon, alas…_

                “Fellas, the guns, really?  I’ve just walked into the highest-security office in the United States, parked a big blue box on the rug.  You think you can just shoot me—”

                  _You idiot!_  “They’re Americans,” she reminded him as she lunged out of the TARDIS doors.

                He shot up, hands up, because, yes, yes they were.

                “Don’t shoot, definitely no shooting.”

                “No need to shoot us, either. Very much not in need of getting shot,” Rory declared as he and Amy followed.  They all stood about, arms raised in a collective effort not to draw ‘friendly’ fire.

                All the president’s men were as confused and vexed as the man himself.   _He doesn’t even know what a police box is.   How can he not know?_   He tried not to laugh at River’s answering volley about the American education system. It was a near thing.  _Behave!_

 He decided it was high time he introduced himself lest he invoke a firing squad.  It was no less than he expected given all the mystery.

                “I’m your new undercover agent, on loan from Scotland Yard, codename: the Doctor. These are my top operatives: the Legs, the Nose, and Mrs. Robinson.”

                River hissed in his direction, “I hate you.”

                “No, you don’t.”

                  _Willing to bet your life on it?_   Her presence was a teasing, if stern, pinch on the wrist.

                He pouted once more but carried on.

…

                “Doctor Song, you’ve got that face on again.” 

                “What face?”

                “The ‘he’s hot when he’s clever’ face.” He rather liked this expression, she wore it so well.

                “This is my normal face.”

                “Yes, it is.”

                “Oh, shut up.” She scoffed at him and passed him to leave the room.  A tendril of affection tickled his proverbial ribs. He did so love it when she decided to play.

                He followed her departure with his eyes. “Not a chance.”

                He liked to repeat himself sometimes, because when a line worked it  _really_  worked.  He got a psychic slap on the backside in reward, and he flushed.

…

                “Shout if you get in trouble.”

                “Don’t worry, I’m quite the screamer.”  She spared him a flirtatious glance on the way down the utility shaft, “Now, there’s a spoiler for you.”

                The Doctor budged his bowtie and pretended—quite ably, he thought—that he hadn’t just been made privy to a shutter quick montage of their future erotic encounters.  She was a commendable screamer indeed, and in several languages.

 “So, what’s going on here,” Canton asked, now that he’d rejoined the land of the lucid.

                “Uh, nothing,” the Doctor piped up. “She’s just a friend.”  And if he was considering pushing the boundaries of that friendship to see if she would shout in Gallifreyan, well, that was just idle curiosity and nothing more, really.

…

                Without attempting to touch her psychically, he broadcasted,  _We have to save Amelia._

                She responded, with impressive certitude,  _We will._   She was fine-tuning her Alpha Meson pistol as they spoke…thought, communed?

                Her smirk filtered across the narrow psychic channel that had grown between them.

                  _Don’t laugh. I’m out practice with this._   There weren’t exactly an excess of Time Lords with whom he could have telepathic conversation anymore.

                Her sorrow came across as well, a tone of finality accompanying the words:  _I know._

                She didn’t speak to him that way again that day.  Not that he blamed her, even the shade of Amelia’s hair made him think of Gallifrey.

                When it was time, she killed all the Silence present on the ship.  Did so quite efficiently if Rory’s tale was to be believed.

                  _You bad, bad girl._

_You love it._

_Kind of do, a bit._

                She kissed him at the door of her cell at their adventure’s end and he was…shocked?  Not so much as she was, he knew.  After he’d ambled off in complete embarrassment at his performance, he felt the residue of her displeasure, felt blunted ripples of unhappiness touch his mind.  She wasn’t broadcasting, then, but she had lost control.  He would have liked to comfort her and, if he were a different man, he might have.  But he was walking the path of the pacifist nowadays and this was not a battle to be fought.  So, he retreated, for strategic reasons.

~!~

                He was less gentle than he should have been when he reached out to her before Demon’s Run.  He had tried a dozen times and gotten no response.  When Rory told him of her refusal, his efforts had become less the probing, needful curiosity of a prospective lover and more the vengeful, careless tugging of an ally scorned.  He was forced to remember that, for all their shared escapades, they were no more bosom friends than they were husband and wife.  The odd bond they shared had allowed him to forget that tiny, vital fact.  They were associates and her abstention had thoroughly dissolved their association as far as he was concerned.

                He would not forget.

…

                Well, everything fell into place with terrifying clarity in the end.  How she was his kind and, yet, so clearly human.  How she terrified those they encountered separate from her association with him.  How absolutely fierce she was. Why their respective timelines ran so counter to one another.  She was a fixed point, which the universe had been waiting to be born.  She was his perfect other.

                  _So, now you know._   She looked down fondly on the cot that had housed his children after it had housed him in his infancy.  He wondered if in their time together it might house others.

 _Now I know._    He wanted to take her hand in the seconds that remained before he had to depart. There were things to do.

 _Are your questions all answered?_    She seemed unbothered by his frenzied thinking, despite her mind sitting pat as a barracks.  That gave him no hope and none to share.  He made the effort to smile for his best friends regardless.

_Oh, you know me, I can always think up more questions._

_Yes, you can._

_You’re my wife,_  he dared with a sense of wonder.

_Am I?_

  1.    He would see to it.



 She smiled at him.   _Someday._

 _I’m going to save your life_ , he swore only to her.  If it was a promise he could not keep, nothing was lost for she already knew.  They both did.

 She thought and said nothing in reply.  He wanted to kiss her in parting all the same.  He would have liked to in case he never saw this face again.  She would be further away next time.

                  _Goodbye, River Song._

_Goodbye, my Doctor._

                He straightened his tie. “How do I look?”

                She inspected him fondly, for truth and for show.  “Amazing.”

~!~

                 He sailed around the universe in his great ship all aflutter.  He searched from one end to the other and never saw her glorious face again. He made a thousand new enemies for love and saved a thousand more innocents in her name.  He found himself dragged bound into a lethal dance with a broken child of time whom he didn't know.  Her name was Mels Zucker and her sadness haunted him alongside her hatred of him.  He only learned the truth when she changed faces and fell.

 

               Clear across time, he whispered for his mate, the version of her he had chosen for himself,  _Oh, River._

 

_You rang, pet?_

 

                  _You left out a fair bit of detail, dearest._

_I haven’t any idea what you mean._

_About your life._

_What about my life?_

_I thought I could find you._

_You will eventually._

_I thought it would be sooner._

_If only._

_I’m sorry._

_It isn’t your fault._

_I’m the only one at fault._

 

 She meted out wave after wave of unyielding affection from where she sat imprisoned to where he'd found an end to his search.  If regrets were concealed by it, they were well hidden, and he knew better than to look.  She made heaven out of ignorance; he couldn’t resist the ease of that bliss.  She was his wife, his inhuman spark and she lit the path he'd walk to find her younger, lost self all the way to the end.

 

                     _Forgive me_ , he pitched into the ether.

 

                     _There's nothing to forgive_ , echoed quietly, easily back.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly forgot how much of this story I'd originally written. This is the balance of it. Sorry for the protracted wait!

**Author's Note:**

> This was written years ago, so the notes are old, too, but I thought I'd share.
> 
> Author’s Notes: Was inspired by a couple of things. 1. If River’s Time Lord enough, then the Doctor should be able to feel her wherever she is. That is, unless she has some kind of bio-damper or perception filter to keep her off the Time Lord radar. 2. I’ve always felt that River’s response to the Doctor’s temper after he realized Donna was lost in Forest of the Dead was excessive given the amount of emotion he was showing at the time. The only way I could justify her overreacting was if she was responding to his inner turmoil rather than what he was displaying externally, which she would be able to do if she was privy to his thoughts. This could have come about through a psychic bond which may result from Time Lord Marriage or it could just be a quirk of her genetic makeup.  
> Disclaimer: Some dialogue has been lifted directly from the relevant episodes, while much of it has been improvised. I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Doctor Who. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
> 
> If you guys wanna talk/flail/flop with me on Tumblr, I'm [sententiousandbellicose](http://sententiousandbellicose.tumblr.com).


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